Kleg had not gotten to be Prime by being careless. He waited until the air was absolutely still before moving to the second portal, then did the same with the final door.
Inside the palace proper, Kleg moved along the wide torch-lit corridor. He Who Creates would not likely be found here; torches offering a stirring of the air, that also did not please the master.
Not far along the corridor, however, there was a peculiar beast sleeping upon a tattered rug. This creature, another of the master"s creations, appeared to be kin to wolf and ape, having the body of the former and the head of the latter. He Who Creates had named these things vunds. It was not very intelligent, the vund, but it was fast on its feet and it could repeat simple messages entrusted to it.
Kleg kicked the vund. It jerked awake with a start and stared at him.
"Go and find the master of the palace and say to Him, "Your Prime has returned." Do you understand this?
The vund blinked.
"Say it."
The thing"s voice was near a growl, but understandable enough: "Yur Prime "as return"d."
"Good. Go. Hurry."
The vund loped off down the corridor, half again as fast as a selkie could run. Wherever He Who Creates might be in the castle, the vund would find Him. The palace was huge, but the vund would search until it located the master of it and everything else within the walls.
Kleg himself headed toward the special room in which certain magical devices had been placed. Once He Who Creates got the message he had sent, it was a certainty that that was where Kleg would find him.
The torches on the walls burned steadily, disturbed only by the wind of his pa.s.sage as Kleg went to meet his master.
Simple-minded as it was, The Kralix held steadfastly to its one goal. It had been given a task, and its entire being was focused on that ch.o.r.e. Find the One. Bring the One. Allow nothing to stand in your way.
It was hungry but it did not pause to eat. The One was still ahead of it somewhere; the Kralix could feel the One as it could feel the weed under its feet and the air on its skin, and it had to get to the One and bring it.
Dimly the Kralix realized that its position was such that it would not have far to go once it caught the One. The One was going in the right direction on its own, and that was good, but the Kralix had not been instructed about that. It had been told three things only: find the One. Bring the One. Allow nothing to stand in your way.
Tirelessly, the Kralix lumbered on, fulfilling its mission.
Night had cast its net of stars into the sky when Conan and his party arrived next to the castle on the Sarga.s.so.
To their left and a hundred spans distant, a pair of guttering torches lit a wide double door set in the flat wall between the torches. The flickering lights also showed two selkies standing guard.
Hidden by the cloak of night, Conan and the three Tree Folk were invisible to the selkies, but even so, the Cimmerian motioned for the others to crouch low, and when he spoke, his voice was nearly a whisper.
"We have arrived," he said.
"Aye," Tair said. "Now what?"
Conan considered. A direct attack was possible, the odds being three "to two in their favor, but he did not know but that the guards could call for quick help. Having a score of fishmen pour forth from the door might well be possible, and he did not like those odds.
They could perhaps work some sort of trick on the guards. Conan could draw their attention to one side, say, while Tair and Cheen circled around behind. Could they lure the fishmen away from the door, that would keep them from seeking help.
Or perhaps they could steal close enough in the darkness to spit the pair with two wellthrown spears. Cheen was certainly adept with hers, and Conan had no reason to believe that Tair was any less skilled.
But as he pondered these things, the burden of choice was lifted from them.
A monster stalked out of the night and charged the two selkies.
Tair saw it first. "By the Green G.o.ddess, look at that!"
Conan did not need to be told again.
The thing was easily twice the size of an ox, wide-legged, and its smooth, mottled skin glistened under the torches. It looked to be some kind of water beast, Conan thought, but with claws and fangs like that of a bear of mayhap a direwolf. It thumped heavily across the weed directly at the door.
The two selkies leaped forth and attacked, jabbing with their lances, but they were as wasps stinging a man. One of the selkies ventured too close, and those ma.s.sive jaws crunched him with a sound loud in the night. Conan shook his head. A quick death, at least.
The second selkie hurled his lance and the long point of it sank deeply into the monster. The creature spat out the first selkie, and paused long enough to pluck the lance from its side with one forepaw, flicking the weapon away as might a man brushing dust from his cloak. Then it lunged, fast for so large a beast, and used the same paw to claw at the second selkie. The fishman was opened from chest to groin by the swipe, and fell backward, mortally wounded.
The monster paid the dead and dying selkies no more mind, but turned toward the door and hurled itself at the portal. The stout wood cracked and splintered under the impact. The thing opened that hideous mouth and attacked the shattered door with those pointed fangs, chewing through the wood.
"It eats the door," Hok said incredulously.
Indeed it was so, Conan saw. The three of them watched in astonishment as the monster devoured enough of the door to gain pa.s.sage. Once it moved from sight, save for the hindmost part of it, there came another crash as something inside fell prey to the thing"s teeth.
"Must be an inner door," Conan said.
After a few moments, the monster disappeared completely, not without more sounds of destruction.
The night grew very quiet after that.
Tair and Cheen and Hok looked at Conan, wonder in their faces.
"I do not know what it is," he said, in answer to their unasked questions, "but it has provided us with an entrance. If you are still interested in going inside to find your Seed?"
Thayla"s fear was high in her now, and not without reason. There had been no opportunity to speak alone with Blad, and her husband seemed preternaturally alert, so that using her obsidian blade on him had been impossible.
Now he had led the trio to the castle itself, and they moved parallel to the long wall, searching for an entrance.
"Hold!" Rayk whispered hoa.r.s.ely, waving at her and Blad to get down.
Thayla obeyed and, in a moment, saw the cause of her husband"s caution.
Oh, no! It was Conan, and some of the Tree Folk!
The big man led two adults and a child across a short stretch of open weed toward the castle. Following their path with her gaze, Thayla saw what lay ahead of the four, and it was an amazing and grisly sight.
Two of the fishmen lay sprawled on the weed, mangled corpses both. The remains of a shattered door hung on the wall, lit by a single torch that hung loosely above and to one side of it.
"What-?" Thayla began.
"The beast in the village," Rayk answered before she could finish her question. "I have seen its work before."
"What is it doing here?"
Rayk shook his head. "I know not, nor do I care. It has given us a way inside, we should be thankful to it."